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Spring Rubber

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Everything posted by Spring Rubber

  1. Looks like this is probably an effect of IBM selling The Weather Company to private equity. Looks like the deal closed on Feb 1st, and just like that, the digital mets were gone after only one month. https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240201709190/en/Francisco-Partners-Completes-Acquisition-of-The-Weather-Company It's a shame for everyone who lost their job in this process.
  2. Steve Bender is back this week. It appears that Fox Weather Live has been reformatted around Steve as the host, with Kiyana as a contributing meteorologist on the show. It appears that the show has been moved permanently back to Studio W with a ton of walk-and-talk segments similar to Ian Oliver's show. In fact, Kiyana was the contributing meteorologist to both Ian and Steve's shows today. Kendall has remained on Fox Weather First Weekend for the past 4 weekends and has appeared on Weather Command Mon/Tue (and select Wednesdays) alongside her former co-anchor Stephen Morgan for multiple weeks now. Amy started the month on vacation and then went to SXSW on behalf of Fox Weather last week. I'm assuming she'll be back pretty soon. I guess we'll see where Kendall, Marissa, and Kiyana will appear once Amy returns.
  3. Marissa Torres is back from maternity leave today, but interestingly, she's on Weather Command and not Fox Weather Live. This makes me wonder if the fact that Kiyana has been "filling in" on Fox Weather Live Mon-Fri for the past several weeks is actually part of a permanent change.
  4. They've totally lost their way. They're re-airing the 7pm ET hour right now, including live severe weather warnings and live radar from and hour ago. Ridiculous.
  5. Last week, Kiyana hosted the Monday edition of Fox Weather Live alongside Steve Bender. Steve Bender fell ill and missed Tuesday-Friday. Haley joined Kiyana on Tuesday night during the severe weather coverage. Kiyana hosted mostly solo Wednesday-Friday, with Haley joining her like once per hour. This week, Steve Bender is on a scheduled vacation. Tom Wachs from Fox 6 Milwaukee is filling in for Steve all week long. Not sure what's going on with the assignments, but Kiyana has been doing Monday-Friday last week, and I think possibly this week too. Kendall Smith filled in for Kiyana on weekend mornings both this weekend and the previous weekend.
  6. I wonder what the long term plans are for the 5pm hour on weekdays. It was decided that upon moving into the Chief Meteorologist role, Demetrius would take the 6pm and keep the 4pm, while leaving the 11am/Noon/5pm open. Yesterday, it was Mike Janssen covering the 5pm hour. Looks like he's doing the 11am and Noon hours today as well. I'll be curious to see if he'll stay on weekends and share 11am, Noon, and 5pm duties with someone else, or if maybe this will be a bridge to a permanent weekday 11am/Noon/5pm role for him.
  7. End of an era. Growing up watching Tom constantly over the past 30 years, it's hard to believe this day has finally come. Enjoy retirement, Tom! Side note: During the 6pm hour today, they talked about the fact that the parts of the 2005 Nicolas Cage movie The Weatherman was filmed on the WGN News set in 2004, with Tom serving as Assistant Director / advisor behind the scenes. https://wgntv.com/celebratingskilling/the-making-of-the-weatherman-with-tom-skilling/ Ironically, the movie was filed on WGN's old set in May 2004, but they were on their new 2005 set by the time the movie finally released. Does anyone know if WGN had to make any special arrangements for their actual newscasts while the movie filmed in their studio? Or was the long break between the Noon newscast and the 9pm newscast back then a long enough gap to do all of the movie filming without disruption to their actual newscasts?
  8. Weekdays: 5am-9am ET - Fox Weather First - Britta Merwin and Michael Estime (Mon-Tue) / Craig Herrera (Wed-Fri) 9am-12pm ET - Weather Command - Amy Freeze, Stephen Morgan, and a third rotating OCM if available. 12pm-3pm ET - America's Weather Center - Jason Frazer 3pm-6pm ET - Fox Weather Now - Ian Oliver and usually Kendall Smith, sometimes others instead. 6pm-9pm ET - Fox Weather Live - Steve Bender and I guess still Marissa Torres (She's still on maternity leave. During most of her leave, it was Haley Meier Mon-Wed and Kendall Smith Thu-Fri. I think Kiyana Lewis is doing the Mon-Wed editions now that Haley is on the overnight shift.) 9pm-5am ET - Fox Weather @ Night - Haley Meier (endless overnight loop after the first hour is done live) Weekends: 6am-9am ET - Fox Weather First Weekend - Craig Herrera and Kiyana Lewis 9am-???pm ET - Fox Weather Live - I honestly don't know what they're doing with this show anymore. It seems like they're starting long form early at 12pm ET some weekends, while other weekends, they are airing pre-recorded editions of this show several hours into the early afternoon. Hosts are some random combination of Michael Estime, Jane Minar. Bob Van Dillen, and Rick Reichmuth.
  9. Looks like the music on the weekday evening version of Fox Weather Live has also been replaced by generic production music.
  10. When Tom first announced his retirement, if you would have said that the last big sticking snow event he was going to cover would be in mid-January, and that he would be covering a possible severe weather outbreak on his penultimate day on the job, most people would have laughed... but it's certainly looking like that's how it's going to play out, based on the latest guidance from the SPC. However, it's looking like the rain might change over to some wet snow (and probably non-sticking snow considering how warm it'll be for the three days prior) during the day on the 28th, so he might actually get to cover somewhat seasonally-appropriate weather on his very final day.
  11. I haven't been watching much Fox Weather lately, but I just tuned in and noticed that the overnight show has been given the Fox Weather @ Night moniker back, and the show is being produced by the control room with a full set of graphics, inserts, and music again. And I noticed that Haley Meier is hosting on a Thursday, which was always one of her days off... So I checked the bio page, and sure enough, Kelly Costa's bio has been de-linked. Her last social media post about Fox Weather seems to be on February 13th. Looking in the past, she tweeted on February 14, 2023 that it was her 1-year mark with Fox Weather. Sounds like she had a two-year deal that was not renewed. This makes sense, as it's seemed like Fox Weather has had very little interest in keeping the Orlando operation going ever since Katie Garner left. Back in June 2023, when they changed Kelly's backdrop from the Orlando skyline to a fake background of the NYC Weather Command area, compounded with the fact that they never hired an Orlando-based replacement for Katie, I had a feeling that their tiny Orlando outfit would come to an end sooner rather than later. Wishing Kelly well on whatever comes next.
  12. This definitely looks a lot more "2020s big network" than the earlier design.
  13. I noticed that as well. It's also ironic considering that Weather Command pretty much only uses its own music during the intros now. That show tends to always use "severe weather" music during teasers and when going to break now. Another change that happened, I believe, sometime during December, is that America's Weather Center's music was changed to a very serious-sounding production track. I'm not a fan at all. Sometime during the past week or two, the weekday edition of Fox Weather First began splitting its time between Studio A and Studio W. I know the 8am ET hour originates from Studio W, and the early morning hours originate from Studio A (as seen on the videos they post), but I haven't watched live early enough to see what time they switch studios. On days that don't feature serious weather situations, they do not use the anchor desk for the Studio W portion of the show. Instead, they use a small coffee table with raised chairs positioned in front of the curved video wall. It looks like they still use the anchor desk on serious weather days.
  14. Glad to see that the weekend schedule is slowly but surely getting filled in.
  15. I didn't realize that Blake Burman took over as moderator of The Hill on Sept. 5th last year. At first I was thinking this move was going to have an impact on Leland's ability to host the show, but here it turns out he's been gone from the show for a while. As for weekday Morning in America, man that show just keeps going through so many changes. I guess ending at 9am ET brings them in line with a typical cable news morning show schedule. Weird seeing them shift back to a solo-host format. I figured that they were going to keep two anchors as multiple anchors are pretty standard for mornings.
  16. Kelly Costa is hosting the 6pm ET edition of Fox Weather Live solo from Orlando tonight. Wouldn't be surprised if they're having a company holiday party in NYC. With Kelly hosting this shift, I'm expecting that they'll probably air long-form programming throughout the primetime and overnight hours.
  17. I know Brigit was just about to get married at the time she left. I'm imagining she'll take some time to decide what's next. Maybe we'll see if she pops up anywhere in 2024.
  18. I found an FTV post stating that he left the network on July 14th "to tend to personal responsibilities at home in Nashville." It was written in a leaked memo from Sherri Berg that Will would remain available as a freelancer; however, to date, I don't believe that's happened yet? Not 100% sure, though. In other news, Zack Green, formerly of WBZ, has joined Fox Weather seemingly without any pre-announcement. He is hosting his first on-air shift today from 9am-12pm ET.
  19. Yeah, the current part of the set that's still standing turns 10 years old in March (the part that was built in 2013 was torn down in late 2019 to make way for the mixed reality studio), so these upgrades seem like a sign that this set is here to stay. The Lab also turns 10 years old in August, although to be frank, this past week of using The Lab as a temp set is the most use it's gotten since 2021 when Weather Center Live was canceled. Outside of this week, The Lab is pretty much only used for extended hours of severe weather/hurricane/winter storm coverage, or on random days that the main studio is being used to film pre-recorded footage. The Lab is not used for any regularly-scheduled programming at this point. Will The Lab also see its 10-year anniversary? My money is on "probably", as it doesn't seem like Allen Media Group is super interested in spending money on full new sets.
  20. It's just one big green screen room, essentially. There's no physical elements used, at least not in any of the live stuff.
  21. With TWC's current set nearing its 10-year mark, it looks like they're committed to renovating the current set instead of building a new one. Both Monday and Tuesday, everything after 1pm ET was housed exclusively in The Lab while work on the main studio is underway. By Tuesday morning, the aging multi-panel stand-up video wall on the right side of the studio was replaced by a brand new single-panel screen. While shows are back in the main studio during the morning hours today, they're not using the telestrator area at all, so it stands to reason that renovations to that part of the set are currently underway. They'll probably move the afternoon shows back to The Lab today while construction continues. I'm expecting it to just be more video screen replacements and maybe lighting upgrades, but we'll see.
  22. New titlebars for maps rolled out this morning 12/5. Everything else about the on-air look remains the same for now. The new map titlebars all now have a navy blue background, are thinner, and (mostly) have left-aligned text instead of centered text. And this is what I mean when I say (mostly) left-aligned text, because then you have a few that still have centered text...
  23. Kiyana is back from her honeymoon, and with that, it looks like a new weekend schedule has started today. Bob Van Dillen now joins Haley Meier starting at 12pm ET. This show is now branded as Fox Weather Live and is a control room-produced show, as opposed to the rinky-dink automation-type production previously used on weekend afternoons. Craig and Kiyana are back on the 6am-9am ET block. The 9am-12pm ET block is back to being Michael, Jane, and Rick, now minus Bob. Edit: From checking the Roku program guide, this new Fox Weather Live block only runs from 12pm-2pm ET, and then long form starts at 2pm ET and runs for the rest of the night. As part of the weekend long form block, there's a new long-form show called It's Been A Week at 3pm ET, which features a recap of the week's weather events. So we're trading the automation-produced Haley Meier weather show from 12pm-8pm ET and getting a control-room produced Haley Meier and Bob Van Dillen show that airs only from 12pm-2pm ET. I swear, the network keeps bouncing back and forth between having weather programming on weekend afternoons, and now we're going back to the "no, let's do long form programming instead" swing of things.
  24. Kiyana Lewis is also out this week, as she just got married this past weekend. They talked about it and showed pictures on air Monday morning. It looks like Kendall Smith is also out this week as well. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Craig and Jane both worked Tuesday on their regular day off (Craig co-hosted Fox Weather First and then held the third seat on Weather Command. Jane hosted America's Weather Center and did select segments on Fox Weather Now.) Also on Tuesday, Haley Meier appeared on three straight shows. She hosted Fox Weather Live at night, but prior to that, she contributed to select segments on both America's Weather Center and Fox Weather Now. And the biggest one of them all? After 10.5 months removed from the position, Nick Kosir returned to the anchor role tonight, hosting Fox Weather Live alongside Steve Bender. Live programming ended two hours early on Monday. The network operated a full normal schedule yesterday on Tuesday due to the south Florida flooding. Hopefully they'll pull a full schedule tonight as the flooding and severe weather continues. I'm assuming the fact that they asked Nick to anchor means that they intend to do a full schedule today. I fully expect them to return to a shortened schedule toward the end of this week and for as long as they remain short-staffed.
  25. Jason Frazer took his delayed paternity simultaneously with Marissa's leave. Per his Facebook post Fox Weather is going to be stretched thin yet again for the next 2-3 months. Thursday and Friday night last week, they ended live programming 2 hours early. We'll probably see that happen several more times until Jason and Marissa return in January.
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